End Of Me
by VTPM
Summary: Song fic one-shot for Kakuzu. Song: End Of Me by Ashes Remain.


(A/N: Just something random I decided to write. I haven't done any song fics in a long time, so sorry if this sucks- - But, I hope you enjoy regardless!)

 **End Of Me by Ashes Remain**

 _There's a fire burning inside me_

 _Cold steel calls out my name_

 _Tempted to give in to the rage_

 _Torn apart by this affliction_

 _Locked up inside myself_

 _This life is much too young to fade._

The first thing he sees when he opens his eyes is the metal bars, locking him away from the world, mostly likely for the rest of his life, assuming he wasn't executed first. There wasn't any way he could have come out of this alive. Either he died by the hands of Leaf shinobi or by the cage of his own people. He scowls at the chakra cuffs and the black stripes tattooed on his wrists, a permanent reminder of his failure. Hatred and fury burn inside him at the prospect of this unfair punishment. The laws were twisted, he knew this all too well. He'd done nothing wrong; done nothing other than _survive_ from a solo mission gone wrong. Why was _living_ a crime to them? Why did he deserve to die? _Because you failed_ , they said. He knew they were only harming the village by arresting arguably the village's strongest jounin, but that didn't feel like enough to justify this wrong. No, it didn't justify it at all. But he knew what could.

 _I ran away from the pain_

 _Always breaking down inside_

 _Incomplete_

 _But now I see_

 _This won't be the end of me_

The revenge he got on his village had been quick, decisive, and mildly satisfying. He still felt the hatred for the villages and their laws, but they no longer applied to him. That was one of the perks of being a missing nin. Sure, he didn't have any protection from comrades, but he didn't need anyone else. He was strong enough to make his own way through the world. The forbidden jutsu he'd stolen along with the village elders' hearts only made him even stronger to further this. He was pratically immortal at this point. Though one word stood out to him in this: _practically_. It was a complete jutsu with incomplete results. He knew he could make it just fine without having perfect immortality, but it bothered him at the same time; to be so close, yet so far.

 _The world around me_

 _Sells an empty promise_

 _They build you up just to watch you fall_

 _It's time to meet this face to face_

 _Comrades_ was such an empty, meaningless word. The Hidden Waterfall shinobi were once his comrades, yet when he arrived back home, battered and half dead from the might of the Hokage's Wood Style, he had been looked down upon, glared at, and instead of being a hero for risking life and limb for the good of the village, he was regarded as a traitor. _Even though none of them were able to assassanate the Hokage either, so who the hell were they to judge?_ Even the Akatsuki meant nothing to him. Four comrades had died by his hands, all because they had proved to useless and annoying. More Akatsuki members had died by his hands than that of the enemies'. And now he was stuck with yet another teammate, this time one he couldn't kill, though that never stopped him from threatening the man or attempting to kill him. He'd purposefully hit him with several of his jutsus during battle, but the bastard always got back up. What an annoyance... Though Hidan didn't prove to be nearly as useless as the previous four; he had perfected immortality and showed some promise, and though while he wasted much of his precious time, he always got his kills. Until that day outside the collection office anyways, when those three Leaf shinobi were to be spared.

 _I ran away from the pain_

 _Always breaking down inside_

 _Incomplete_

 _But now I see_

 _This won't be the end of me_

Leaving them to live was a huge mistake he had never expected. It was all the fault of the Leaf shinobi one again that his life was being threatened once more, more specifically the fault of Kakashi Hatake of the Sharingan and the prodigy jounin Shikamaru Nara. He wasn't sure how the little brat had managed to get Hidan to use his blood for the ritual, but none the less, he was down to three hearts and there was still no sign of his partner's return. And as if facing 3 against one still wasn't difficult enough, but now another team of them had shown up, one of them the Nine Tails Jinchuuriki of all things. The odds of him winning the fight were getting lower and lower as time went on. It seemed that things had turned in his favor for a few moments when the Jinchuuriki chose to fight him alone and failed his jutsu, then had the stupidity to attempt the exact same strategy a second time, but that had been when his fate had been sealed. He had been fooled by the blonde brat, and he successfully hit his jutsu this time, the RasenShuriken. The agony was immense. The jutsu shredded him and left him in tatters. He was on his last heart, and it beat only feebily. Movement was impossible. He heard the apporaching footsteps and the crackle of the lightning blade, and made a weak attempt to look up at the wielder, but it meant nothing as the Chidori destroyed his final heart. _Is this how it ends...?_

 _Black and white melt into grey_

 _Till every truth is stripped away_

 _When nothing's wrong nothing's okay_

 _Everyone has been betrayed_

He wasn't sure whether he was dead or alive anymore. His soul was in his body once more, but his actions did not feel like his own. Working for the Akatsuki was one thing, but to be working for Kabuto, the student of the traitor Orochimaru? Never. He had too much pride for that. He knew he was being controlled, and that didn't seem much like life to him. But he supposed he shouldn't complain; he at least wasn't dead. Perhaps he could break the control somehow... For now he would put up with it, given he had no other choice. He remembered this entire war had first started for the sake of finding peace. How ironic, but he chose not to question Pein's judgement. It wouldn't surprise him if it was all a cover up lie to take control of the villages for himself. This whole world was built on lies. That was what drove Kisame, the most loyal shinobi he knew, into an organization like the Akatsuki.

 _I ran away from the pain_

 _Always breaking down inside_

 _Incomplete_

 _But now I see_

 _This won't be the end!_

Who was he kidding? This was the end and he knew it. He'd been defeated by Team Asuma once again, though he had no idea why. Just the way the cruel world worked, he supposed. He'd been trapped in some sort of container; a coffin was the best way to describe it, when the jutsu had been broken. Edo Tensei was it? Ah, what did it matter now? At least his soul was finally free, and he was no longer bound to Kabuto, but he still didn't want to die. He envied Hidan's immortality in this moment. If he had the same sort of jutsu he did, he'd never have been in this situation. But that was all in the past now and no longer mattered. He'd lived longer and gotten stronger than most shinobi could even dream to be. He supposed that was at least something to take pride in. For all he knew, as he'd told the zealot many times: _even hell runs on money; I'll be just fine._

 _I ran away from the pain_

 _Always breaking down inside_

 _Incomplete_

 _But now I see_

 _This won't be the end of me!_


End file.
